The latest on California politics and government

January 24, 2014

Union membership declined in California last year, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics says in a new report.

The drop was from 2.5 million in 2012 to 2.4 million in 2013 and from 17.2 percent of the state's 14-plus million public and private workers to 16.4 percent, the BLS said in a nationwide report on union representation.

Other data have shown that the bulk of California's union membership is among school system and state and local government workers.

Nationwide, union members remained static at 11.3 percent of all workers. New York has the highest level of union membership, 24.4 percent, while North Carolina has the lowest, 6.4 percent.

PHOTO: Dennis Maxey, center, a Transbay Terminal worker from Oakland, joins members of SEIU Local 1000, representing 95,000 state employees as they rally at the Capitol on Wednesday, July, 1, 2009. The Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua